How We Made the Internet

On March 9, 1999, U.S. Vice President Al Gore, made a statement during a campaign interview that, unbeknownst to him, would soon become the subject of somewhat humorous controversy. What followed were a bunch of newspaper articles, comic strips, and “memes” mocking the vice president, starting a new wave of political humor for his candidacy in the 2000 Presidential Election. Ridiculous. Did Al Gore really just claim that he created the internet? Well, not exactly. What he had meant to say was that he was an integral part of putting forward legislation that made the internet so easily accessible and as powerful as it was in the 1990s. But because of his poor choice of words, naturally they were stripped of their context and even completely changed altogether. That answer wouldn’t be as interesting as telling everybody that Gore was bold enough to claim that he sat down, designed, and built the internet as a technology, all by himself. Gore’s lack of forethought with his remarks lead to an influx of embe